Custom Recovery Fundamental Conceptual Queries?

Hi Gurus, I am new to android world and have purchased Samsung galaxy Nexus GSM and am on JB and have been able to root and unlock using Wugfresh toolkit.

I did Nandroid backup using Wugfresh toolkit.

Few fundamental basic conceptual queries:

# When we install CWM (clockworkmod) what I understand is that some custom recovery is installed which can then be used to do full backup (call Nandroid backup).

1. When I do factory reset after the above process; should the customer recovery on phone get deleted / wiped as it was not part of original phone?
If yes then whats the point of it as in any emergency I cannot rely?
If No then why because factory reset does a complete wipe and installs everything default like when the phone came?

Pls elaborate. As I am highly confused with this?

2. Is customer recovery part of ROM? Pls elaborate.

3. How do one use Wugfresh toolkit or other methods which wipe off phone before backing up first time? Its like chicken egg story. No backup without unlock and no unlock without wipe (before backup)?

4. Is Boot loader part of ROM and once unlocked does it stay forever like that. Pls elaborate.

Hi Gurus, I am new to android world and have purchased Samsung galaxy Nexus GSM and am on JB and have been able to root and unlock using Wugfresh toolkit.

I did Nandroid backup using Wugfresh toolkit.

Few fundamental basic conceptual queries:

# When we install CWM (clockworkmod) what I understand is that some custom recovery is installed which can then be used to do full backup (call Nandroid backup).

1. When I do factory reset after the above process; should the customer recovery on phone get deleted / wiped as it was not part of original phone?
If yes then whats the point of it as in any emergency I cannot rely?
If No then why because factory reset does a complete wipe and installs everything default like when the phone came?

Pls elaborate. As I am highly confused with this?

The storage medium of your device (be it an mmc, mtd, etc) is partitioned into several partitions not limited to : data, cache, system, boot and generally recovery (I say generally because some Samsung devices put the recovery image inside the boot image).

Factory reset is going to wipe the data and cache partitions but it doesn't actually touch the recovery or boot partitions, because of that your recovery will remain the same in a factory reset.

2. Is customer recovery part of ROM? Pls elaborate.

Refer to the above

3. How do one use Wugfresh toolkit or other methods which wipe off phone before backing up first time? Its like chicken egg story. No backup without unlock and no unlock without wipe (before backup)?

Never heard of it... Doing a complete backup of everything before adding custom recovery isn't directly possible in most cases. Assuming there is a valid return to stock method for your device backing up data is the only thing you really should have to worry about as it's where all your information is stored so doing a backup after root and recovery is actually fine.

What you will want to do is backup your app data in some other way (titanium backup if it will work on your device non-rooted) or similar so you can restore that data to your stock rom should you ever have to return to stock (removing the custom recovery)

4. Is Boot loader part of ROM and once unlocked does it stay forever like that. Pls elaborate.

Different OEMs treat the bootloader a little differently, this is a separate partition from the boot one mentioned earlier. In nearly all cases custom roms etc aren't going to touch the bootloader (this may not be the case w/ OTAs), some may direct you to replacing the bootloader in some devices but it's generally done separate from the ROM. To that end the bootloader state (locked/unlocked) generally isn't going to change if using custom ROMs etc (OTAs may be another story).